The Third Son
by Spikey44
Summary: The curse of a third son: ever grasping for treasures beyond his reach. A story of ambition and family. A story of twisted Doctor Cid.


**The Third Son**

_Disclaimer: All known and recognisable characters, places etc. property of Square Enix. I own nothing. _

In the third month of the year 648 O.V. in the Imperial Capital Archades the lady Gertrude Bunansa gave birth to her third and final son, Cidolphus, and promptly died. When told of the mixed blessing that had visited his house the lord Bunansa of the time, of the name Ffamran Jecht, was somewhat annoyed to be interrupted in the middle of a senate council meeting with the news that he now had a healthy baby third son and a dead wife.

'And where am I to find another wife then?' He had snapped. 'Sons I have, one to inherit and one to spare – why could the new whelp not have died instead?'

For Cidolphus Demen Bunansa it was not the most auspicious of beginnings.

* * *

In the ninth month of the year 656 O.V. in the back of an old school book that had once belonged to his older brother Ethan, Cidolphus Demen Bunansa, aged eight, disproved Aethanol's forth law of aerodynamics. No one noticed because Cidolphus was just a third son.

* * *

In the year 659 O.V. Ffamran Jecht Bunansa's first born son, Anselem, died when the bastard Rozzarian naval pavilion sank the Imperial navy warship Thor while it was performing routine drills in the depths of the Rso Straits bordering Rozzarian sea territories. Anselem's body was never recovered from the sea. It was all very tragic.

The upshot of the whole affair, however, was that Cidolphus went from a little regarded third son to a much more viable second son. For the first time in his life the eleven year old child's existence was noticed by his father. Alas, as with much in Cidolphus' life, it proved to be a mixed blessing.

Ffamran Jecht, when attempting to acquaint himself with his youngest off-spring, found himself quickly bemused as the boy launched into an in-depth and far- reaching discussion over why the existence of Faram could be conclusively disproved by the judicious application of Hetaman's space/time conundrum and Hepplewaithe's laws of natural science.

'What an odd child.' Ffamran Jecht had murmured to himself afterward. He decided that further contact with the boy would not be necessary. Instead he bought Cidolphus a rifle and found a servant to take the boy hunting. Fresh air and exercise, Ffamran Jecht was sure, would shake the strangeness right out of the lad.

* * *

In the year 664 O.V. Cidolphus Demen, Ethan Lantan, and Ffamran Jecht Bunansa are out hunting in the wilds of the Tchita highlands. Cidolphus Demen is sixteen. He is full of ideas and ambition. He wants to change the world and is completely confident that he has the intellect and the means to do so.

Unfortunately his adored father does not care. Ffamran Jecht doesn't need to care what his second son has to say. He already has a son to inherit from him. Cidolphus is just the spare.

Cidolphus is very tired of being just the spare. It is almost worse than being completely ignored.

On the 664 O.V. tragedy strikes the house Bunansa yet again. In a freak accident that no one is ever able to completely explain, Ethan Lantan Bunansa, the heir to the Bunansa fortune, died.

He died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

The death was officially recorded as accidental; Ethan was hunting Marlboro Overkings. He was likely caught in a wave of Marlboro gas and in the ensuing mental confusion, shot himself in the head. The fact that the shot that killed him did not appear to come from his gun was ignored; the explanation was sound and there was no need to rake over the coals for uncomfortable truths.

The only witness to the whole sad affair was Ethan's younger brother Cidolphus – but he had been rendered unconscious by the same wave of gas that so befuddled his brother. Or so he claimed. No one really questioned. It would not have been seemly.

Ffamran Jecht Bunansa, by this time an old man ready for the quiet life, buried his second born son in the family crypt beside his wife and his first born. He turned to his third son as the family crypt was sealed once again.

Cidolphus smiled at him and Ffamran Jecht could only say, 'Bugger me; House Bunansa is ruined.'

Cidolphus stopped smiling.

* * *

In the year 666 O.V. Ffamran Jecht Bunansa died after a long, protracted and undignified wasting illness, wherein the bedbound former senator regularly complained to any who would listen that his only surviving son and heir was poisoning him.

No one listened – it would not have been seemly.

Nevertheless when the rumours of his father's slanders managed to reach Cidolphus' ears they found him a student of the prestigious Bhujerba university. Eighteen and surrounded by minds almost as brilliant as his own, Cidolphus, now going by the name of "Cid" simply laughed at the rumours.

When Cid returned to Archades to bury his father and take up his inheritance he brought with him a ravishingly beautiful Bhujerban woman of the name of Ezria. They lived together in the Bunansa house outside of wedlock for three years before Cid found the time to marry his lover in the proper fashion.

The tongues of the gossips of Archades began to wag - it was all just so _unseemly_.

* * *

In the year 670 O.V. the newly minted lady Ezria Bunansa suffered her first miscarriage. She aborted the foetus too early to tell for sure, but the doctors thought it was likely a girl.

'Not to fear my lord, the lady will make a full recovery,' one of the physicians had told Cid with bluff cheer, 'and you shall soon have more children. In any regard it was only a girl and she'll not have inherited anything anyway.'

Cidolphus, in a fit of pique he was becoming known for in the social and academic circles he travelled in, struck out at the feckless physician and threw him bodily out on the street.

'That was my child,' he roared so all the gossips of Highgarden Terrace could hear. 'I would have loved and cherished her, even if she was just a girl.'

* * *

In the year 672 O.V. at the age of twenty four, and after a fruitful and rewarding stint as a tutor at Bhujerba University, Cidolphus Demen Bunansa took up a post as a researcher in the Draklor Laboratories.

'I'm home,' he thought as he settled into the dove grey uniform that fitted snugly over his wide shoulders and thick chest. 'This is where I shall invent wonders.'

Later that year the Lady Ezria gave birth to a baby boy. They called him Hyram, because Ezria liked the name.

Cidolphus loved his son from the very first moment he saw him. This was his heir, after all.

* * *

In 673 O.V. Hyram Bunansa dies of a chest infection at just seven months old. Cidolphus and Ezria are devastated. Cid cancels an expedition he had planned for over a year to the Fey Wood. He does not work for a month. He weeps for a week.

The Bunansas bury their tiny infant heir with much pomp and circumstance. His little bones are interred in the family crypt beside his two dead uncles and his grandparents.

Cidolphus, in his darker moments of mourning, wonders if he is being punished for his avarice and his nascent ambition. Then he reminds himself that he has already proved that the gods do not exist - so he lets himself off the hook.

* * *

In the year 674 through 675 O.V. Cidolphus is mostly away from home. He is on research expeditions to far flung corners of Ivalice, or he is addressing academics and scientists from all the nations of the world at symposiums in all the major centres of power, from Nabudis to Ambervale.

Quite swiftly he is being heralded as the greatest mind of his generation. This almost makes up for the loss of his son.

It is nice to have his greatness acknowledged at last.

* * *

In the year 677 O.V. Cidolphus quite incidentally discovers a much more efficient and cost effective way of refining magicite fuel; it saves the Empire billions of Gil, which Gramis Solidor swiftly funnels into enlarging the Imperial army. A huge banquet is held in Cidolphus' honour and he is flattered, if somewhat bemused.

When he is asked to give a speech he rises to walk over to the podium and adjusts his hated spectacles on his nose.

'This is all well and good,' he announces slightly put out, 'but I still don't know the correct formula for solidifying Mist back into Magicite.'

The audience think he is making a slightly esoteric jest. Cid accepts their polite laughter and applause but he is still put out that a solution to his original intent eludes him.

Later that year he resolves the conundrum. A fellow researcher estimates that if Cidolphus keeps up his present pace of invention and discovery he will have almost single-handedly saved the Imperial coffers enough Gil to buy the entire principality of Dalmasca.

Cid laughs at that, 'Why would we do that?' he scoffs, 'When with my inventions we can take Raithwall's seat by force within a day.'

His fellow researcher laughs; he thinks Cid is joking.

Cidolphus smiles but he does wonder why people persist in attributing to him a whimsical turn of phrase that he does not in fact possess. Cid almost never makes jests; if he speaks it is the truth as he sees it, and as Cid only acknowledges his own authority in all things everything he says is therefore truth absolute.

Right on the tail end of 677 O.V Ezria Bunansa gives birth to a second son. They call him Vassili and Cid is in love again.

He has another heir.

* * *

In the year 680 O.V. three year old Vassili dies of a tumour; he dies in screaming pain, little belly horribly distended with the massive malignant growth. Cidolphus holds his son's hands right through to his last breath.

He weeps for days and will see no one save his equally devastated wife. At least, he thinks, I still have my beautiful Ezria.

Cidolphus does not work for the entirety of the year. The sharp gossips of Tsenoble say that it is Cidolphus' mourning that puts back the scheduled conquest of the eastern Naldoa island of Messonya, with its rich deposits of magicite ore the Empire needs so badly.

'Can't have a war without Doctor Cid,' the gossips whisper, 'The Empire needs her best weapon, after all.'

Cidolphus, locked up in his heaviness, does not listen. He never has.

It rains on the day he buries his second son. Cidolphus would almost like to believe that it is a god's tears that fall on him. Of course, he knows that's not true. He killed off the gods when he was eleven.

He doesn't have anything left to believe in save himself.

Cid decides then that he does not want an heir - for he knows how ill-fated a third son can be.

* * *

In the years 681 through 683 O.V. Cidolphus finds happiness again. He and Ezria travel Ivalice together and regain their lost youth. Cid takes another stint teaching at Bhujerba University and reminds himself of when he was a young man of eighteen and had just ascended to his rightful place and position.

Cidolphus becomes a lead researcher within Draklor. He has his own budget and department and he continues to push back the boundaries of probability, possibility and hume endeavour. Ivalice, it could be said, bows down to the demands of Doctor Cid's questing intellect.

He designs and builds the Alexander in the beginning of 682 O.V. and she is the greatest airship Ivalice has ever seen. He follows suit by designing the Shiva and the Dreadnought Leviathan in subsequent months.

He begins to research in his spare time more heavily into the properties of mist and magicite. He is sure there must be a way to manufact the precious ore and do away with mining for it altogether.

When he mentions this at an official function to the Emperor Gramis the man is receptive. Draklor receives extra funding and Cid begins to feel like the trials and tribulations of his life are over.

* * *

In 684 O.V. Ezria comes to Cid and tells him that she is once more with child. Cid is appalled. They are both thirty-six years old now and he fears for his wife and her ability to carry a child safely to term.

He begs his wife on bended knee to abort the child. He knows something of toxins, he tells her vaguely, 'I can concoct a draught to flush your womb but leave you unharmed', he says.

Ezria is furious. She throws him out of his own ancestral home; Cid is not the only one in the marriage known for his temper, after all.

Cid spends the months of his wife's pregnancy banished from the Bunansa homestead. He sleeps in a hammock in his lab. He fears every day that the babe in his wife's womb will kill her just as he killed his own mother.

He is being haunted by the curse of a third son.

Thus it is that Cidolphus is in his lab, going over some blue prints for another military airship, when a servant from the Bunansa household rushes in to find him with the worse news imaginable.

The Lady Ezria has gone early into labour; the doctors have been called, and the midwives, but mother and child are like to die.

Cidolphus goes home but he is already too late. He is greeted by a grim faced physician and a hatchet faced mid-wife.

'Your wife is dead,' the low born vulgar mid-wife tells him, 'and the babe too small to survive long. Faram take them both to his eternal peace.'

'There is no Faram.' Cidolphus growls as he stomps up the stairs. He knew this would happen. He knew it. It is the curse of the benighted third son.

He finds calamity and panic in the master bedroom. His wife is dead and left to lie in her own congealing blood upon the bed as a flock of fools dither about over the useless scrap of flesh that has killed his beloved wife.

Cidolphus stomps forward and snatches the tiny infant from the useless physicians. The babe's limbs are going blue; he cannot breathe. Cid slaps the baby's back with one large, calloused hand; the gesture full of absent-minded brutality. He is not trying to save the child's life. He never wanted him anyway.

The baby cries; the blockage in his airway dislodged by Cid's rough handling, almost as if the child would live simply to spite him. Cid wants to fling the tiny wriggling infant, still covered in the blood and gore of his wife's innards, away from him.

The child opens his eyes and looks at Cid directly. There is something in that look, some mixture of indifferent, yet insipient, challenge that ignites recognition in Cid. He stares in shock as the baby is snatched from his hands by the fluttering flock of physicians.

'Ffamran,' Cid whispers because the tiny infant looked at him with the same loathing he always saw in his own father's eyes.

* * *

In 686 O.V. Cidolphus is finally convinced that his premature and sickly son will live after all. It has cost him two beloved children and a wife, not to mention the possible daughter from the miscarriage, but house Bunansa finally has an heir.

Cidolphus decides to hire a Moogle for a nanny because the Moogle is cheaper and he does not want to waste Gil on a child that might yet die. The gossips of Highgarden Terrace said that it was unseemly to employ a non-hume to watch over a gentry's son. Cid ignored them, just as he always did.

Still in 686 O.V. he decides his son will live when he is passing the nursery and observes the two year old building a tower of brightly coloured building blocks. He stops in the threshold of the nursery to watch a moment. Ffamran looks up at him, with his accusing eyes, and he holds out one of his blocks towards Cid.

'Kupo?' The infant says clearly curious.

Cid does not know why his son's first word (and it is a strange one) should convince him that the babe will live when his brothers did not. Perhaps what convinced Cid was the thought that flittered through his mind as his son turned back to his construction with another murmured "kupo".

What an odd child, Cid had thought, and then he reminded himself that Ffamran was a third son, after all.

* * *

In 690 O.V. Ffamran is six. Cid is not sure how it happened as he had been predisposed to despise this child, but he now finds that he loves his boy. Ffamran is already being called a little prodigal; prodigiously and precociously intelligent for his age. Fframran is fascinated by everything and he follows his father around like a faithful hound.

Cid begins to regret calling his son Ffamran now, for the look in his boy's eyes is not as harsh as he thought it was. In fact Cid revels in the adoration he sees reflected back at him when he sits at his draughtsman desk with Ffamran reading or tinkering with some manner of mechanical toy at his feet.

Cid begins his first experiments into manufacting artificial magicite in this year. He is despondent when these fail until he discovers that his young son has built him a replica Dreadnaught made from match sticks and left it on his desk. There is a carefully scribed note attached to the gift:

_For my father, who can make greatness from nothing at all._

Cid throws himself back into his work with renewed verve; he reminds himself that every failure is still a step in the right direction. He is contriving to create Mist from thin air, after all. These things take time.

He starts to take his boy to the lab with him. He thinks that perhaps finally, in this boy with his quick wits and sharp eyes, Cid has truly found an heir to his genius.

* * *

696 O.V. Ffamran is twelve and he is already far and advanced in his studies compared to his peers. He attends akademy as all gentry boys must, but his school work does not stimulate him. He is often bored and finds other ways to amuse himself.

It is these other ways that worry Cid. His boy has a taste for danger it would seem. He has already stolen his way into Cid's private things and found the old books on toxins and poisons Cid keeps locked up in the attic. Ffamran has also discovered his father's rifles. He wants to learn how to shoot. Cid is worried if he does not teach the boy Ffamran will find someone else who will.

Or worse, blow his own head off.

The problem is that Ffamran reminds Cid worryingly of himself at that age. Cid decides that he should be grateful that Ffamran has no older brothers to be jealous of or there might have been trouble indeed.

The day Ffamran steals aboard an Imperial air cutter and ends up stranded along the Phon Coast, Cid decides that he must do something about his son's rampant curiosity and lack of good sense. Cid never had such a virulent dose of wanderlust at that age, he is sure.

When he finds Ffamran in the midst of the lowly hovel of a hunters camp along the coast he expects to rescue a frightened and contrite child. Instead he finds his boy, who Cid remembers, is only three years shy of his majority, arguing the relative financial merits and disadvantages of long distance hunts with the vile, low brow denizens of the camp.

It would seem on further investigation, that Ffamran _planned _to be stranded in the camp all along.

For the first time, Cid must accept the reality of his son's cunning. His boy is devious, but his methods are different from Cid's own. As are Ffamran's motivations. Curiosity is all for Ffamran, while Cid has always been motivated by ambition.

Cid thinks about scolding his boy when he gets him home, but lacks the spirit for such pretence. Instead he draws up a schedule of activities to keep his son out of mischief. Shooting practice, time spent in the lab with Cid, and extra academic studies supervised by Cid himself.

In 696 O.V. Cidolphus is happy. He loves his son.

* * *

In 697 O.V. Ffamran is thirteen and Archadia conquers and consumes the Republic of Landis. There are parades in the streets and a day of national celebration is declared throughout the Empire when victory is declared.

Cid is happy; his weaponry helped bring about a speedy conclusion to the war. He also anticipates a rich vein of new research possibilities can be exploited via the magicite mines in the Lantana Mountains.

Ffamran is not as enthused. He watches the effigies of Landis' fallen generals and leading fathers being paraded through the streets of the capital, and the chained prisoners of war being pelted with stones, and he turns his face away.

'What's wrong son?' Cidolphus asks.

Ffamran does not meet his eyes, 'I do not like the show, father. It is not to my taste.'

'Why not?' Cidolphus has always raised his boy to be loyal to his Empire. 'Do you not revel in Archadia's triumph?' He pauses for a moment, 'Do you not revel in _my_ triumph?'

His son looks up then, quite suddenly, and it is his father's eyes that confront Cid. His father's disapproval and contempt he sees in the face of his young son.

'Not today father,' Ffamran tells him quietly, 'I find that today I am not proud of you at all.'

And his son runs from him then, for the very first time; runs all the way home. He does not leave his room for the rest of the day and night, no matter how Cid rants and raves and pleads.

Cid is distraught; he cannot understand how any son of his, a boy of his own flesh, blood and mind, could do aught but be proud of all Cidolphus has wrought.

That night as Ffamran keeps to his room and Cid's goes to his own, he decides that he must fix his son somehow. He must make his heir in his own image. He cannot abide the thought of criticism; he cannot abide the thought that his boy might not love him.

* * *

In 698 O.V. Ffamran turns fourteen and Cid is not sure what to do. His boy, fruit of his loins, his son and heir who lived, the very child his beloved Ezria died to birth, has become like a stranger to Cid.

They are at dinner one evening and they are not talking. Ffamran is not truly eating either and Cid does not like how long and thin his son is growing. Cidolphus himself has always been built strong as a behemoth; wide as well as tall. Ffamran is like a reed in a breeze; he is all legs and arms and no meat to his bones.

'Eat up son,' Cid suggests tiring of the sullen silence emanating from the other end of the dining table.

Ffamran looks up then and puts down the fork he has been using to poke and prod at his cold dinner, 'I am not very hungry father – may I be excused?'

Cid hesitates. He is not used to being uncertain of what strange thoughts percolate inside his bright boy's head. It is unsettling. 'Son is there something troubling you?'

'No,' Ffamran growls; he does not mean to but his voice is taking a goodly long time to break and he is as like to squeak as rumble every time he opens his mouth. Cid had thought in fact that his son's recent turn to silence was in reaction to his unreliable voice. Now he thinks this was likely not the reason, or at least not the only reason.

'Did you know?' Ffamran shoves his plate away suddenly, pushing his chair back from the table and throwing down his napkin in the theatrical and jerky way of adolescents. 'Did you know about the people who died because of your machines, father?'

Cid is confused. 'What people?' he asks genuinely perplexed, 'Which machines?' He has made so many, even he forgets which inventions are his alone and which are merely models he has improved upon.

'In Landis,' Ffamran tells him voice heated even if it is squeaky, 'I have heard that the Emperor states that twenty thousand died in the final siege of the capital Landia alone. Other voices say it was more like one hundred thousand dead, in ten months of war alone.' Ffamran stares at him hard, 'That is almost a quarter of the population of Landis – all dead; and all because Archadia is growing too large and too fat to support herself.'

'Ah that,' Cid shrugs. 'That is the way of war, Ffamran; men die. The strong conquer the weak. It is the natural order of things.'

Ffamran is giving him a look Cid cannot identify, but it is a very dark look. 'They say that your Tokahawk cannon was most likely responsible for the high death toll in Landia.' There is something beseeching in his son's eyes, 'Did you know? Did you know that you were making things that would kill so many?'

Cid cannot make sense of the meaning behind his son's words, or the look in his son's expressive eyes. Is his son….._judging…._him?

'I made a cannon son; it would be a poor cannon indeed, if it could not pierce an enemy barricade, wouldn't you say?'

'So you did know?' Ffamran seems unable to look at him as he rises to his feet.

'It is true what they say about you then; Cidolphus Demen Bunansa is the Empire's greatest weapon.' Bitterness trips from his tone, squeaky voice or no squeaky voice. Cid is aghast; does his own son seek to criticise him? Cid can scarce countenance it.

'Now look here Ffamran,' he rises to his feet also, flinging his own napkin aside, 'I am not sure I like your tone, young man.'

Ffamran's head jerks up and his eyes, oh his eyes, they are burning pitch and gleaming with contempt, 'And I am not sure, _old man_, that I like being the son of a mass murderer.'

Cid can say nothing as his son flounces out of the dining hall, all over-long legs and awkward elbows. Cid stares at the doorway for a long time, even as the echoes of the front door slamming shut fade into the ordinary echoes of an old house. He is dumbfounded. He does not know when his boy started having ideas of his own; Ffamran has never had an idea that Cid had not had first – until now.

Cidolphus is not happy; he wanted an heir, a little helpmeet, not a critic with his father's scornful eyes.

Something must be done about Ffamran, Cid decides. No son of his should ever impugn him in such a way. He does not want Ffamran thinking at all if he does not think as Cid wants him to.

* * *

Still in 698 O.V. and Cid is meeting Vayne Solidor for high tea. Cid has become very fond of the nineteen year old possible future Emperor. He finds that Vayne has a mind that does not confound Cid. He and Vayne both understand the rigours and delights of ambition. He and Vayne both understand that they are right and all else is not that important.

Still on this day Cid is almost too troubled to keep up with the conversation or enjoy his vanille tea.

Ffamran has taken to staying out late of the evenings, doing Cid knows not what, and so close to his graduation from Akademy this worries Cid. Of course he does not doubt for a moment his son will graduate and with full honours. Ffamran was smart enough to sit the final exams at twelve, but Cid held him back because there was no university of worth that would accept a boy that young; even a boy as prodigiously bright as Ffamran. Still, Cid does not know what Ffamran does at nights, or with whom, and nothing he says, does, or threatens to do, can force the truth from Ffamran's surly lips.

'You are worried about your son.' Vayne tells him coolly, interrupting his thoughts.

'Hmm?' Cid pushes his spectacles up his nose, 'What?'

'Ffamran,' Vayne murmurs carefully straining tea through a tea strainer so the loose grains stay at the bottom of the strainer and do not pollute the clear, rich brown liquid in the porcelain cups. 'You are worried about him. I can tell. You only get that particular look in your eyes when you think on your son.'

'Ah,' Cid sighs expansively and checks the perfection of his white gloves for any blemishes fastidiously, 'I tell you Vayne, there is nothing worse than having a child, loving that child, and then discovering he has gone and developed a mind of his own quite contrary to your own requirements.'

Vayne smiles thinly, 'I am sure my father would agree with you about that.' He murmurs in his low melodious voice. 'At least my lord father has Larsa, who shall ever and always be the apple of his eye.'

Cid shakes his head, 'I worry about my boy. He's getting ideas.' Cid flexes the fingers of his gloved hands, a decidedly nervous gesture. 'He has come into contact with the wrong sort of people I think.' Cid scratches at the stubble on his face – he is forever forgetting to shave these days.

'I fear he has become,' Cid hesitates struggling to get the word out for it is so reprehensible to him, 'I fear my boy has become a _liberal_.'

Vayne laughs then, a bright oddly empty sound and then, almost instantly his face smoothes out into a perfect blankness once more. 'Liberal in all respects, or so I hear.' He rejoins amused. 'He is very popular with a certain type of young lady in the city.'

Cid frowns, 'What do you hear?' he demands of the Emperor's son keenly, 'For the boy tells me nothing at all of what he does.'

Vayne studies him with something like pity, 'Do you truly not know?….Ah, but of course you don't, you would not let Ffamran's behaviour go unchecked this long if you did.'

Cid's fingers convulse around the delicate tea cup and he replaces it on the saucer before his large hands shatter it. 'What behaviour?'

Vayne shakes his long dark hair behind his shoulder. 'I would not let it trouble you, Ffamran is on the cusp of his majority; it is a time for boys to be a little wild.' Vayne makes an airy gesture with his tea spoon, 'Street racing sky cycles and fraternising with the plebs is just the sort of thing a boy about to become a man does, I suppose.'

Cid cannot formulate speech for a moment. He knows that Ffamran has a sky cycle; he watched the boy build it from salvaged scrap parts after all. At the time he had been impressed by his son's ingenuity and practical engineering skills. The idea that Ffamran is racing the thing is not so terrible to him, even though such things are prohibited by law in the capital. Cid knows that his son needs excitement to stimulate his mind, after all. The idea that his son is licentious does not trouble Cid all that much either. It is this undesirable fraternising with the low born that disturbs him. Surely it is from these wretches that Ffamran gets his strange and wrong-headed ideas.

'Fraternising with plebs, hmm?'

Cid begins to clean his glasses vigorously. He will not ask what sort of rough sort his son is involved with. He will not demean himself in such a way, or draw attention to his ignorance. He is angry with Ffamran for making him appear foolish in front of his friend. His boy shall pay for that.

He will pay for making of Cidolphus Demen a fool.

Cid does not look at Vayne as he speaks again, 'Ffamran wants to go on from Akademy to Bhujerba to study aviation and engineering.' He explains absently. 'I had already begun to wonder if that might not, in fact, be a good idea; especially considering his recent behaviours.'

Vayne sips his tea. 'Bhujerba is a hot bed of liberalism.' He says without inflection but his blue eyes are sly.

'I was thinking,' Cid mused, 'considering the interest my boy has recently taken in affairs of the Empire at home and abroad, if he might do well in the Judiciary?'

Vayne almost smiles; he and Cid are clearly thinking as one. He picks up his tea and takes a delicate sip.

'The Empire can always use a young man of Ffamran's obvious talents,' He says. 'And,' the possible future Emperor murmured smoothly, 'perhaps when he himself wears the mantle of Empire, Ffamran will come to understand where his loyalties 'ought lie.'

Cid smiles, suddenly much happier, 'My thoughts exactly.' He sips his tea and adds some more sugar to his cup. He stirs it in.

'Now,' he grins at his friend, 'we were discussing a possible expedition to the ancient city of Giruvegan?'

* * *

In the year 699 O.V. Ffamran turns fifteen. On the day of his graduation from Akademy Cid informs his son that he is to be enrolled in the Judiciary. Ffamran has no words. He merely stares. Cid deliberately does not look into those silently accusing eyes.

Over the next few months Ffamran is too busy with his formal induction training to go gallivanting about with his little tarts and plebeian friends. Cid himself is almost too busy with his preparations for his excursion to the Jadg difojr and Giruvegan to notice how pale, thin, and haunted his son looks these days. Ffamran takes to sleeping all the time he is home and moves like a man of eighty due to exhaustion.

The life of a Judge in training is a hard one, especially for a boy born to privilege and plenty, but Cid is pleased to see with what fortitude his boy is handling the adjustment.

Still, there is one blight in the otherwise happy running of Cid's year. It is late one night and Ffamran should have been home hours ago. Cid had in fact already retired to his bed with a collection of maps when he hears his son's fast tread in the hall.

'Son?' he calls but receives no answer except for the sounds of frantic activity in the latrine; someone is being violently sick.

When he finally decides to investigate he finds his son still in his armour, gulping down a potion found in the medicine cabinet and holding a hand towel to a freely bleeding gash in the side of his head. There is also blood spattering his armour in numerous places; his boy has been in a fight, it would seem.

'What have you been up to son?' Cid asks him curiously.

Ffamran turns dead eyes to his father; eyes that have spent too many hours awake already and are hollow with shock.

'A riot in the prison block,' He says in a breathy whisper, even though his voice had finally broken by this point. 'The prisoners revolted; we had to put them down.' His son swallows hard. '_I_ had to put them down.' Ffamran stares through the wall, blindly. 'Ten men and I put them all to the sword – all they wanted was their freedom.'

'Ah, I see.' Cid nods and turns to leave the bathroom. It is clear to him that Ffamran is just a little shaken by his first true blooding, but other than that he will be fine.

'No you don't old man.' His son's leaden voice stops him. 'You don't see a thing.'

Cid decides to ignore the bitterness he hears in Ffamran's voice. His boy is just over tired. All will be well in the morning. Violence is just something Ffamran will have to get used to, especially if he is to rise to the rank of Judge Magister as Cid intends for him to do within the next five years or less.

Cid turns to smile at his boy before he retreats into his room, 'Goodnight Ffamran,' he tells his boy kindly. 'I am proud of you, son.'

Ffamran says nothing, but had Cid bothered to meet his child's eyes they would have told their own story.

* * *

Later in the year 699 O.V. Cid travels to the ancient city of Giruvegan. There he meets a god and his entire world view tilts on its axis. Suddenly Cid knows for certain that he was born to do great things. Together with Venat and Vayne, he shall mount the shoulders of the false gods themselves.

He will grasp the reins of history in his hands and see man explore previously unknown spheres of knowledge and understanding.

Cidolphus is euphorically happy when he returns home to Archades; he is triumphant – he always knew he was better than other men.

* * *

In the year 700 O.V. there is another upheaval in the Judiciary prison; this time a number of the worst criminals, dissidents, terrorists, and agitators against the Empire are helped to escape prison. They are set loose to menace Archadian society anew.

The instigator of this heinous act of open revolt is none other than his own son: Judge Ffamran Mid Bunansa.

Cid is astounded, disbelieving, even when the evidence of Ffamran's betrayal is laid bare to him. He cannot believe his own son would hurt him in such a way. He cannot believe that the fruit of his loins could contain such poison.

He waits for his boy to come home and explain himself. He convinces Vayne to cover up his son's crimes. He expects Ffamran to return home, repentant, on any given day for seven months. His son does not. He has vanished without a trace.

Cidolphus is despondent, desolate. He is without an heir again. He has no one to reflect his greatness.

'Forget him,' Venat tells in round about way via rhyming couplet, 'You have no further need for either son or heir.' She reminds him.

Cid is fortified if not completely consoled; he knows he has important work to do. Ffamran will return or he will not; Cid cannot waste the time worrying about his fool of a child.

Cid does not forget Ffamran, but he does a good job pretending he has.

* * *

In 702 O.V. Cid is interrupted right in the middle of a rather delicate experiment into the manufacting of artificial nethicite by the approach of one of the spies he sent out to gather any word on his son's whereabouts.

The slimy bangaa bounty hunter brings him an arrest warrant for a sky pirate, of all things, going by the name "Balthier". Cid curls his lip, not even bothering to do more than cast a cursory glance at the caricatured picture of the brigand's face.

'My son's name is Ffamran.' Cid tells the incompetent wretch who has wasted his precious time with this dross. 'And he most certainly would not waste his time with pirate scum.'

Cid speaks no less than the truth; for he cannot imagine the heir of his own flesh and blood doing such a thing. Even now Cid cannot countenance the idea that Ffamran is capable of independent thought and action that might run contrary to Cid's own ideals. No heir of his would bring shame on Cid in such a fashion. Ffamran loves him; Cid is sure of this. He has never doubted that his son adores him.

Briefly it occurs to Cid that he too loved his own father, in his way, but that did not prevent him removing said father when the man became an obstacle to his rise to greatness.

Cid remembers then that Ffamran is a third son; for just a moment, Cid is almost afraid.

* * *

In 704 O.V. Doctor Cid watches the Midnight Shard ignite and take Nabudis with it. Even from his safe distance of a hundred miles due north aboard one of his own airship, he is deeply impressed by the sheer scope and magnitude of the power released.

It takes but ten minutes to reduce Nabudis, a city that has stood for seven hundred years, to flame and ashes. The Mist released into the surrounding environs turns the sky black and the grasslands to fetid mudslides.

Judge Magister Zecht, in command of the Imperial airship Ixion, cries out and drops to his knees in the face of such immense destruction. Even Cid is forced to shade his eyes from the lurid glow after a few minutes.

'Well,' he claps his hands when a poison rain begins to fall from the Mist spoiled clouds, 'Let's go and retrieve our prize, hmm?' He rubs his hands together in anticipation. 'Ah Venat, think of the progress we shall make with a genuine piece of the Sun Cryst, true deifacted nethicite, in our hands!'

Cid is too wrapped up in his conversation with Venat to notice the looks of sickened horror on the unmasked faces of the Imperial soldiers on the bridge of the Ixion. Still, he has never worried about what other people think of him before and is unlikely to start now.

It is enough to know he is making progress.

When he is back in his lab with the Midnight Shard it occurs to him that he does not even miss his son all that much anymore. Ffamran was a disappointment after all; he could not truly see Cid's greatness.

When Judge Magister Zecht runs away from the Empire in much the same way as his own son had four years prior, Cid curls his lip in contempt.

'Fools,' he scoffs; they are all fools for failing to see he is right. Cid is always right.

* * *

In 706 O.V. Ffamran finally comes home. He visits Cid in his lab along with the Occuria's puppet and a group of lesser beings. Cid sees then that Vayne was right all along; his son does indeed fraternise with the plebs.

There is a disagreement, loud and unpleasant, weapons are drawn, but Cid escapes unscathed with Venat's kind assistance. Nevertheless Cid is troubled.

During the reunion Ffamran would not look at him and so Cid could not see what was in his eyes. During the fight Cid tried to draw him in; he wanted to see what Ffamran had made of himself in the intervening years. He wanted to see if there was anything of Cid's heir left under the frippery and ridiculousness of the man before him.

Ffamran would not raise a hand against him; though he let his Viera whore do so. Ffamran would not look at him. Ffamran had not the courage of his own convictions when faced with the father whom he betrayed, or so Cid concludes.

Cid is disgusted; Cid is disappointed. No heir of his would ever be so weak.

Still this will not stop him using his son for his own ends. If his son would throw in his lot with the lesser mortals then Cid will treat him as such. He will throw his son to the Occuria; perhaps then Ffamran will see that Cid has been right all along?

In the night, after it is over, Cid sleeps and he dreams. This is unusual as now, thanks to Venat, Cid rarely needs to sleep and never dreams – or perhaps it could be said that he dreams awake. Still, either way, this night he does dream; he dreams of the day his only surviving son was born. He wakes up and thinks that he should have just smothered the brat there and then, like he planned.

He never wanted the boy anyway; for Ffamran was ever and only a third son.

Cid does not know it, but he weeps for the rest of the night.

* * *

Upon the peak of Pharos, still in the year 706 O.V. Cid basks in his final triumph. He is victorious; all he has worked for has been attained. He stands upon the shoulders of the would-be gods; he will remake history as it should be written.

Ffamran is there to revel in his triumph. The time of his return is over long but Cid will forgive that. Upon the Pharos, almost blinded by the light of the Sun Cryst, Ffamran finally meets his father's eyes.

There is no pride, no awe, and there is no revelry in that regard. Ffarman is sad. Cid cannot explain it. His son has ever confounded him. Cid does not know what thoughts live within his mind.

'Come Ffamran,' he exhorts the fruit of his loins, the flesh of his own flesh, 'revel in the hour of my triumph.'

Ffamran's eyes darken and there is the ghost of that other Ffamran in their depths. He raises his rifle and sights down the end; Ffamran aims for his father's head and he fires without a word spoken.

Cid does not feel the blow; he is no longer of the mortal clay. He smiles. He is proud of his boy for here, _now_, he sees his true heir step up to take his right of place.

Ffamran reloads, re-sights, and fires again. He will not be distracted by anything other than his father. His sights are set on Cid utter destruction. Cid is riddled with lead shot in moments. He bleeds Mist.

Cid falls even as he ascends. His body is no longer of the mortal clay but instead he will join with the Sun Cryst, and his essence will breathe life into his greatest creation, his Bahamut.

Ffamran stands before him and he does not smile. Still, even now, he will not revel in Cid's triumphs. It is just like when he was thirteen and ran from the parade, Cid thinks vaguely.

'Was there no other way?' His boy asks him softly.

Cid is perplexed; another way? Why would he ever choose to do things any other way than he has? He is triumphant; all has played out as he planned. Ivalice will see that he was right all along. The world shall know of his greatness. Nabudis will stand a lasting monument to all he has wrought upon the skein of history's weave.

Cid would not have it any other way.

Ffamran watches him as he ascends and still -_still_ -he does not comprehend. There is pity in his eyes as he watches his father's ultimate triumph. Cid is upset. He is upset with his son's lack of understanding.

'No pity for me.' He says. 'Fool of a pirate.'

Ffamran speaks no more; his silence his greatest weapon against his father. He watches as Cid ascends. He does not smile. There is no joy in him for Cid's ultimate validation. Cid is hurt even as Cid ceases to be altogether.

The Sun Cryst explodes; Ffamran picks up his whore and runs away again.

* * *

On a bright sunny day in 706 O.V. above the ancient city of Rabanastre, the pirate Balthier conquers the sky fortress Bahamut; arresting her course, subjugating her grand design, and deliberately dashing her to pieces upon the sands of Dalmasca.

Doctor Cid's greatest creation is thusly proved a failure.

The Empire loses her war.

* * *

In 707 O.V. once the political and diplomatic dust has settled over the horrors of recent war, there is a quiet memorial held for Archadia's dead. The Judge Magisters Bergen, Ghis, Drace and even Zecht are all celebrated for their loyalty and dedication to duty and honour. Lavish funerals are held for one and all.

There is a funeral for Vayne alongside the internment of the late Emperor Gramis. The gossips of Archades suggest that the young Lord Larsa has a sense of humour after all, for he buries brother and father side by side for eternity; locked in a huge obsidian tomb.

Attention then turns, as it must, to rites for Draklor's very own Doctor Cid: the Empire's greatest weapon.

However when the Bunansa family crypt is opened up by official edict it becomes apparent that someone else has already been inside. This tomb invader has even gone so far as to engrave the dead scientist's name in the marble beside that of his wife and his two dead sons.

Under the name and the dates is a carven epitaph; scored into the stone with some form of corrosive acid:

_For my father: he made murder from greatness. _

The tomb is ordered to be resealed and the epitaph is left alone.

New histories are written by the hands of man, and like the gods he threw down, the name and feats of Cidolphus Demen Bunansa are lost to the mists of time.


End file.
